


Red

by mrspollifax



Series: advent calendar 2020 [3]
Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional support boyfriends, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to gun violence, canon-typical anxiety/mental health things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrspollifax/pseuds/mrspollifax
Summary: There’s bright red blood spattered across the snow. Alex isn’t sure whose it is.- or -Alex has some stuff to get through. Henry helps.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Series: advent calendar 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040538
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of an attempt at Advent Calendar prompt ficlets. Today's prompt is red.

There’s bright red blood spattered across the snow. Alex isn’t sure whose it is. There isn’t time to see. There isn’t _time_.

No. The blood’s not real; or rather, it is real, it’s terrifyingly real, but it’s not in front of him. It’s just an afterimage seared onto his closed eyelids. That’s all.

He’s in a car _._ The engine’s starting. And his head, mother of God his head hurts. Wait --

\-- no. No, that had been before the party. And after. Cash had put him in the car. With ...

“H?” The sound of his own voice, the feel of it, is grating. Harsh pavement skinning an elbow, a knee. Alex clears his throat and tries again. “Henry?”

“Hush, love.” Henry’s voice, pitched low. “You’re fine. Just a dream.”

Alex wrenches his eyes open. It’s dim but not completely dark; the full moon shines through the blinds they must have forgotten to close before bed, reflecting bright off the snow on the roofs beyond. He can feel his heartbeat pounding in his temples, hard, and he’s sure he just heard the echo of a gunshot --

Wait. 

“ _Alexander_.“ Henry again. Alex turns his head to look, but he can’t quite meet Henry’s eyes. “Five things you can see, Alex.”

“Your insufferably pretty face,” Alex bites out, reflexively, and that’s not good. He breathes, slow, in and out, and tries again. “The window. The snow. That hideous painting Philip inflicted on me for my birthday. And David, who really needs a bath.”

Henry _hmm_ s, and Alex finally looks up into his worried eyes. _Henry_. Next to him. In their bed. In their home. Looking as beautiful as ever in the moonlight shining through their bedroom window.

Alex is home. Not departing a holiday reception into a shooting, not slamming his head on the car door as Cash wrenches him inside, not wondering whose blood was there on the ground, who had taken those bullets instead of them. 

_Fuck._

It had all happened so fast, and now it never seemed to end.

“You should have saved David for ‘things you can smell’,” Henry says. He reaches out and brushes the curls off of Alex’s forehead. “Should we keep going?”

Alex shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

“Alex --”

“I’m fine, Hen. I promise.” Alex takes one more deep breath, and then another, feeling his pulse slowing, the fog fading from his mind. He can see the dresser. The mirror. Henry’s shoulders and lips and hair, dim-lit and deeply familiar. The red-splashed snow is still there, but it’s not real. It’s just a memory. “Something woke me up, and then …” he gestures at the window.

“The snow?”

“The moon, the glare. Something.”

Henry nods. “It’s summer in Australia, you know. No snow. We could arrange an official visit.”

Alex snorts. “Hard to finish law school if I have to flee New York every time it snows.” He rubs a hand across his eyes. Every time it snows, or a car starts, or a door slams, or whatever else is on the never-ending list of triggers he seems to keep developing. He yanks at his hair, winding his fingers in tight, but Henry pulls them free again, tugging gently.

“You just need time,” he says, pressing his lips to Alex’s knuckles. “That’s all.”

Alex breathes. Time.

“Maybe the blinds closed, too,” he says at last, waving a hand at the window.

Henry laughs. It’s warm against the darkness. “I can do that.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [tulipsandtesseracts](http://tulipsandtesseracts.tumblr.com)


End file.
